What Will Be Left to See
by HecateA
Summary: Kingsley has refused to look in the mirror for the last three days, for fear of what he will or will not see. He does, however, know that he can't go much longer or much further without facing that reflection. Written for Romance Awareness Day 12: The reflection in the mirror is your soulmate's reflection.


**Author's Note: **Oh gosh, I hurt myself here. Anyways, enjoy! Written for the 31 Days of Soulmate!AU Day 12: The reflection in the mirror is your soulmate's reflection. (Either you're seeing your soulmate in place of yourself, or you're seeing what they are doing as though you're looking through the mirror)

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

**Warnings: **Grief

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**Stacked with: **MC4A; Shipping Wars; Hogwarts; Harmony of Souls Eternal; Rays of Blades

**Individual Challenge(s): **Gryffindor MC; Slytherin MC; Bow Before the Blacks; Seeds; Ways to the Heart; Tissue Warning; Golden Times; Old Shoes; Location, Location, Location; Trope it Up C (Secret Relationship); Themes & Things A (Death); Themes & Things B (Loss); Themes & Things C (Mirror)

**Representation(s): **You feel everything that your soulmate feels Soulmate!AU

**Bonus challenge(s): **In the Trench; Second Verse (A Long Dog); Chorus (Middle Name)

**Tertiary bonus challenge: **Schooner; Keen

**Word Count: **1361

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_**Shipping Wars**_

**Ship (Team): **Kingsley Shacklebolt/Sirius Black (Starry Storms)

**List (Prompt): **Summer Medium 1 (Bittersweet)

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_**Hogwarts Submitting Info**_

**House: **Ravenclaw

**Assignment: **Assignment #2, Health and Fitness Task #4: Write about someone trying to climb something.

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**What Will Be Left to See **

Kingsley had always been called daring. When he'd dipped his fingers in the cake batter and gotten chased out of the kitchen via rolling pin as a child, his grandmother used to cluck that word at him. Mad-Eye had grunted the word when he'd hired Kingsley, and it had felt like a medal he could pin on his chest. He'd been told he was so by men and women he flirted with, often behind half-smiles and glasses of wine.

So why was it that Kingsley hadn't been able to look into the mirror for the last three days?

He kept the bathroom lights shut when he showered and brushed his teeth. In the changing rooms at work, he made sure to face the walls. He walked down the streets of Muggle London and past an infinite parade of glass storefronts with his head down.

Granted, he had also been quite busy. There was the small matter of digging the Order of the Phoenix out of the hole that their presence in the Department of Mysteries had caused, which was an extra-deep hole as far as he and Tonks were concerned since they wanted to maintain their covers. Then there had been the issue of evacuating Grimmauld Place, packing everything away and leaving the house without a trace that they had ever been there, should Bellatrix Lestrange come to claim it. After the meeting that this had gone on, Remus had approached Kingsley and pulled him aside, gently suggesting that he should take care of other matters and leave the house to others—which he was infinitely thankful for. Oh right; he'd also worked a twelve hour shift in the midst of all of this. How could he forget.

But now, Kingsley had time. The one thing he wanted nothing of.

Scrimgeour had kicked him out of the office; Mad-Eye refused to give him another assignment; Dumbledore had endorsed this; Tonks had turned down his offer to go out for a drink after work.

"Kinglsey," she had pronounced evenly, looking him in the eyes. "Go rest."

Kingsley didn't want to, but he didn't want to spend time with other people either. It was quite the conundrum and he didn't solve it; just dragged himself back to his building and up the stairs to his floor. He unlocked his door and didn't flick open the light before stepping into the entrance and closed the door behind him.

He hesitated, chewing his lip.

And then he reached back and flicked open the light, finding himself immediately face-to-face with the mirror in his entrance hall. His sister had hung it there when he'd moved and she'd proclaimed herself his interior designer, claiming that it would make the space look bigger and more modern. He should have known better than to listen to any of his sisters. But perhaps it was time to face the mirror. It wouldn't get any easier, at any rate. If anything, Kingsley was feeling emptier and emptier.

It had been an inconvenience, when the mirrors had started misbehaving all those months ago, soon after they'd met. He and Sirius had joked about the technical inconveniences of seeing your soulmate in the mirror when it had begun happening, probably to hide the pleasant and embarrassing shyness that would have made them admit that they, well, were…

Eventually they had learned to work with the mirrors and focus on what the reflection showed, to avoid seeing each other's daily activities if they really honestly needed to make themselves look presentable or check their own teeth for spinach or do anything else that necessitated a simple looking glass.

But Kingsley had known, as soon as Sirius had fallen through that veil, that he wouldn't be able to manage it. The loss had been so immediate, so gutting... And it had continued to consume Kingsley, who had nowhere to go scream and cry and shout about this relationship he hadn't even been meant to be in. He knew that there was no way he'd see anything or anyone other than Sirius Black in the mirror. That there was no way he'd be able to focus on anything other than how out-of-touch he felt with his own body, which he knew to be full and functional but which felt awful and empty.

Enough of that. It was time to be daring. It was time to climb over his grief and his one hundred fears and get it over with.

Kingsley looked into the mirror, only seeing his own awful and ashen reflection for a second before the image changed. Now, Kingsley was looking into a cozy and homey kitchen with wooden cupboards, ample counter space, and colourful, mismatched chairs around the table. An old radio sat on the counter, and Kingsley could tell by its dials that it was turned on, he just couldn't hear the music. A window above the sink was letting in the sunshine, and a chalkboard on the wall had a list of ingredients and some doodles of a Snitch on it.

At the stove stood a man with glasses and dark and wild hair, inching a spatula under a golden pancake. Kingsley's heart seized in his throat when he recognized the man standing behind him with a plate—except that Sirius looked younger, healthier, and even sunkissed here. His hair was gathered in a messy bun, pinned up by his wand. He was wearing a comfortable pair of jeans that fit him well, as if he'd gone out and shopped for them instead of relying on others to bring back clothes from the outside world for him, and a plain black t-shirt that exposed the tattoos running up and down his arms nicely.

Kingsley had to laugh as he watched the two men's antics—the first, so obviously James Potter, launching a pancake into the air straight from the pan for Sirius to catch. The two celebrated like schoolboys, James speaking into his spatula like a sports announcer with a microphone.

The woman who stepped into the mirror's view then, carrying a watering can, was laughing. She looked over her shoulder and whatever she told them seemed to have a bit of sass to it, based off of the cock of her hip and the edge of her smile. Sirius looped an arm around her waist and whatever his response was, it made her laugh more and she kissed his cheek before wiggling away to refill her watering can at the sink. James passed his spatula over to Sirius who stepped up to the stove and started cooking.

Kingsley could have watched him flip pancakes for hours. He hadn't realized that he'd been reaching out, but his fingertips touched the mirror's frame.

"I can't believe you left me behind," Kingsley whispered. Of course, Sirius didn't look back. They couldn't hear each other now. The mirror, for all intents and purposes, was an allusion. They were in different worlds now.

Kingsley found tears pricking his eyes as he corrected himself. "I can't believe you're in a better place..."

Sirius didn't respond to that either. But Kingsley hoped that, if he ever did think about him in the afterlife, he would be able to guess or tell or somehow _know _that Kingsley had gone from afraid of what he'd found to relieved.

There was a knock on the door behind Kingsley. Hastily, he wiped his eyes and opened up to find Remus, Tonks, Bill, and Fleur on his doorstep carrying an assortment of styrofoam take-out containers and a bottle of wine.

"Wotcher," Tonks greeted him.

"Umm, hi," Kingsley answered, frowning. "What are you doing here?"

"We wanted to make sure you were in a good place," she replied.

Kingsley swallowed. When he looked into the mirror, Sirius and his friends had just sat down to enjoy their meal. Kingsley looked back at his own people and at what smelled like the Thai food they had brought. He looked back at the mirror again, just for a second, to formulate his goodbyes like he hadn't been able to in the Department of Mysteries. This was a good start.

"Come on in," he offered, opening the door wider.


End file.
